


Space

by Jake_the_space_cat



Series: A Creature of Pride (transmasc!Kim AU) [5]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Cats, Father Figures, Gen, Grief, Grieving, Mentors, Pets, Pre-Canon, Precinct 57, Trans Kim Kitsuragi, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jake_the_space_cat/pseuds/Jake_the_space_cat
Summary: When Eyes dies, he leaves something behind.(Spoilers: It's a cat.)
Series: A Creature of Pride (transmasc!Kim AU) [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2160411
Kudos: 10





	Space

“Go on and take her home. You don't have to keep her forever. It doesn't work out, you know Alice would take her.”

Kim looked over the rim of his cold cup of coffee at Bastien Martel, the man who'd recruited him for the RCM more than 24 years ago. He saw the same fatigue in Martel's eyes that he felt himself. It had been a long few days, made far worse by the familiarity of the emotions, of the process. Another friend gone, another person no one could save.

“My lease doesn't allow pets.”

He said it with a faint twist of irony. Martel wouldn't let him get away with that.

“Because they're going to evict you if she starts barking. I can see that being a big problem.” Martel turned to look at the wire enclosure in the corner and its occupant, sitting upright with her front feet tidily together, watching them. She appeared to be listening, polite and attentive, but that couldn't be the case - like many blue-eyed cats, she was deaf. Or so Luc, in the past year better known around the precinct as Eyes, had told Kim. Back when he’d still been alive.

"I don't have space, Bastien." This was a better argument, but not one he expected to hold.

“You can fit a cat anywhere.”

Kim sighed, put the empty coffee mug down on the desk beside him. "Good. I'll find her a place on a hanging shelf. Or maybe I can wedge her under the bed in _another_ vacuum storage bag."

He looked over at the mug, pushed it a few inches away - just something to do with his hands. He was so tired.

Bastien let the silence hold.

"I can't, Bastien. Luc has family." He stopped, corrected himself. "Had family." _Unlike me. I have this man, I have a retired vice detective in failing health, I have the RCM. When I die, they're the only ones who will step forward to claim what remains of my life._ "They have the right to claim his belongings. He wasn't close to most of his relatives, but he was close to his sister. I'll be very surprised if she doesn't want to take inventory."

"She's interisolary. She might get some of his things through customs, but you know she won't get a cat through. And even if she does, what's quarantine these days? Six months? A year? She--what's her name again?"

"Alison."

"No, not the sister. The cat."

Kim reached under the lenses of his glasses, rubbed his eyes. So tired. "Fleur."

"Huh. Okay. Can you imagine a year in a cage smaller than that?" He waved his hand and his own near-empty mug of cold coffee at the cat in her enclosure. "Because that's what they do for animals in quarantine."

"I don't see much difference between that and a Jamrock apartment."

Martel gave him a look. The look that said, _I'm 17 years older than you and I'm the one who recruited you to this operation, you know I'm winning this one eventually, so stop trying to be cute about it._ Martel was one of very few people who would even think to try a look like that on Lt. Kim Kitsuragi.

“Bastien. The last thing I need is a roommate. Even a very small feline one.”

“Come on. Look at her. That is literally all she needs, right there in that cage. A box, a couple of dishes. A few cans of cat food. That’s, what? A couple of square feet? That’s less space than one of your aerostatic models.”

“And my aerostatic models can take up that space because they’re _suspended from the ceiling._ ”

The little white cat had stopped watching them and turned her attention to reaching a paw through the enclosure wires, trying to bat at one of the ubiquitous balls of fluff and dust that always formed in the corners of old office buildings.

"Kim, just take her home. And all of her stuff. Even if his sister does decide she wants her, it's going to take time. You can't keep a cat here that long." Martel considered his coffee, took a sip of what had to be the last cold sludge at the bottom of the mug, and then went for the low-hanging fruit Kim had been waiting for. "Besides, some of the guys are allergic."

Some of the guys _were_ allergic. And already religiously avoiding this particular meeting room. “I really do not have room for her.” His tone was sharper than he'd intended. Going through all of the paperwork and red tape required after finding a fatal OD rubbed you raw the first few times, but you had to get used to it. Still, there were always things that could break through the protective pragmatism of habituation. Breaking the lock on your partner's apartment, wading through the debris that had drifted up from weeks of its occupant no longer caring about where or how he lived, and finally performing the Stations of Breath for the cold body that used to be the person you'd worked side by side with for more than a year was one of those things.

Martel recognized the shift in tone and his voice softened. "You did everything you could. You can't solve addiction. I wish someone had seen it coming before you were assigned to each other, but hindsight's 20/20."

Kim waved a hand, dismissing the words. He'd been hearing nothing but versions of the same sentiments for the past two days. They were true, of course, but time would have to pass yet before they settled in and became part of the narrative of his life, just another step along the road of a career cop. He'd lost colleagues before. Eventually those moments scarred over. You just had to wait and not pick at the wounds.

"Okay. Well, I've got to get back to work." Martel stood, put a hand on Kim's shoulder and let it rest there for a long moment before turning to head to the meeting room's door.

He threw his last words over his shoulder.

"And if that cat’s still here after you leave work today, Kitsuragi, you’re fired.”

“Martel." Kim managed not to roll his eyes by strength of will alone. "You haven't been in my chain of command in year--"

“F-I-R-E-D. I’m going to come around later to check.”

**Author's Note:**

> You get a cat! And you get a cat! And *you* get a cat!
> 
> I just give people cats. It's what happens.
> 
> Bastien Martel is one of Kim's two core mentors in this AU. He recruited Kim into the RCM as a junior officer when Kim was 15 and served as his handler until Kim became a full officer. Martel works in juvie by choice. Kim's other mentor is Aubin Lafronde, who works in vice (which makes him a bit of a hypocrite, since he's queer and closeted)--and is old enough by this point in the timeline he's long retired. They dad as best they can.


End file.
